1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an illumination setting support apparatus of an optical information reading apparatus for reading optical information such as a bar code and a QR code.
2. Description of the Related Art
Now that traceability is widespread, an optical information reading apparatus is installed in a factory, a physical distribution complex and the like to decode optical information such as a bar code or an optical code given to a product or a commodity. This type of optical information reading apparatus is called a “bar code reader” or a “code reader”.
The bar code reader irradiates the optical information with laser light, visible light, or infrared light to take in reflected light by an optical reading element (image pickup element). Analysis of information recorded in the optical information is performed from the picked-up image that has been taken in.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-33465 discloses a bar code reader. The bar code reader disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2008-33465 includes a substantially rectangular parallelopiped outer case, and in this outer case, two LEDs for pointer, various types of substrates, a lens assembly, illumination LEDs are contained, so that imaging of optical information is executed while irradiating optical information with light of the illumination LEDs. If an amount of light of the illumination LEDs incorporated in the bar code reader is insufficient, an external illumination unit is additionally provided in the bar code reader and the illumination of the optical information is performed using the external illumination unit.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H04-241476 discloses a ring-type external illumination unit, and partial illumination of lighting a part of a plurality of LEDs included in this ring-type external illumination unit. The use of such a technique of the partial illumination enables a variety of illumination.
Even if the illumination using the partial illumination is desired, in the case where the external illumination unit to be used only has the ability of ON/OFF, the partial lighting using the external illumination unit is impossible. Moreover, even if the external illumination unit has the ability of the partial lighting, an optimal lighting pattern cannot be set if the ability, i.e., what lighting patterns of the partial illumination the external illumination unit can perform, is not known.
Moreover, the recent bar code reader generally has an illumination unit incorporated therein, and when the external illumination unit is used in combination with the internal illumination of the bar code reader, work for setting an optimal lighting pattern becomes complicated, because there exist a number of possible lighting patterns.